Yuga Labs has announced that it has been forced to block access to ApeCoin staking for users from North America due to the demands of officials.
According to a statement from Yuga Labs, users in the US and Canada are prohibited from staking APEs, which serve as internal tokens of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) ecosystem. The service is also not available for Syria, Iran, Cuba, Russia, Crimea, as well as the Donetsk and Luhansk republics. The developers of ApeCoin explained that the regulatory environment leaves them no choice but to block the service geographically in many regions. ApeCoin Developers
noted on Twitter that even with limited access to the service, technically, smart contracts are available to all users:
“We want to remind the community that one of the benefits of decentralized finance is the ability for everyone to interact with smart contracts or develop solutions that allow other users to do this.”
The ban on access to APE staking for North Americans may be related to a recent investigation initiated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The regulator suspects the company of violating federal laws and is studying whether BAYC and ApeCoin tokens can be considered securities. APE staking puts Yuga Labs at the mercy of U.S. regulators who are cracking down on crypto companies offering such services.
In September, regulators in eight U.S. states demanded that cryptocurrency lender Nexo stop promoting interest-bearing cryptocurrency products, deeming them unregistered securities. Last year, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was also forced to cancel the launch of a highly profitable USDC stablecoin product due to an SEC ban.
Source: Bits
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